The present invention is directed to linking related data sources, in particular those data sources comprising metadata, although linking data sources of any type is contemplated as within the scope of the claimed invention. Generally, metadata is defined as data about data. Metadata commonly describes a tangible thing, such as a movie, or motion picture, an audio compact disc (CD), a digital video disc (DVD), a theatrical performance, or a concert, to name a few. Metadata sources often comprise multiple items of data. For example, a movie data source, such as a database, may include data describing multiple movies. The collection of information about a particular movie in the data source comprises a separate item of data. Moreover, each of these items of data representing a movie may then be divided into a common set of distinct attributes. Each of these attributes describes a particular feature of the data item, or movie. For a movie data source, of which there may be several, attributes might include movie title, release year, director, running time, and cast, among others. For a data source containing theaters showing movies, attributes might include theater name, address, city, state, and zip code, among others. These common attributes of any one data source typically apply to each of the data items contained in the source.
Conventional search algorithms use sophisticated searching techniques to find relevant metadata about a particular tangible thing, such as a movie. Although the searching methods are computationally sophisticated, such searching methods are prone to error because they often rely upon insufficient data, which may be mistakenly assumed to be correct. Moreover, such techniques require a great deal of processing capacity, which increases the cost of locating information and the time required to locate such information.
Such techniques are particularly prone to errors and subject to unreasonable processing costs and delay where metadata is located in several data sources. Accordingly, a solution that effectively uses simpler computational methods to match data items of multiple data sources by linking the information of the data sources together is desired.